Istanbul residents were startled awake this morning by an accident on a motorway to the north of the city, in which a lorry crashed from behind with a bus full of passengers on its way to the city from Diyarbakır. Despite the spectacular nature of the accident and the serious damage suffered by the bus, there were no casualties.
Turkish media sources reported that the accident occurred on the Marmara North Motorway as it passed through the Eyüpsultan district, located in the north of Istanbul. According to published reports, the driver of a bus travelling a long-distance route between the south-eastern city of Diyarbakır and Istanbul was distracted and missed the exit he should have taken on the motorway, and instinctively and in a serious act of carelessness, braked sharply in the middle of the road.
Just at that moment, a large goods vehicle was travelling behind, transporting a cargo of carpets from the Turkish city of Gaziantep to Romania. Due to the sudden braking, it could not avoid the bus and crashed into it from behind. As a result of the impact, the bus – belonging to the company Star Diyarbakır – hit the safety barriers of the lane and fell into the ditch; the lorry, meanwhile, turned as a result of the impact and was left pointing in the opposite direction.
The crash caused serious damage to the lorry’s trailer, which spilled its entire load onto the asphalt, while on the bus the passengers panicked after the accident. Several ambulances and members of the gendarmerie and fire brigades quickly arrived at the scene and confirmed that fortunately there were no deaths or injuries. The incident forced the temporary closure of some lanes of the motorway in both directions, until the cargo of carpets could be removed from the road and loaded onto another lorry.
In the absence of the experts’ conclusions, everything indicates that the accident was caused by the improper actions of the bus driver. However, the authorities are still on alert due to the low temperatures at night after the heavy snowfall in Istanbul in recent days, which has caused serious problems in road transport and left hundreds of flights cancelled; this morning the cold spell left minimum temperatures of -4 ºC, increasing the risk of ice on the roads, especially in the higher areas north of the city.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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